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Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy was a great game, and so is the sequal, Jak II. One of the first things that you will notice is that the "hub" world, Haven City, is HUGE! There are numerous alleys, shops, buildings, caverns and dark places for you to explore. The city is massive and covers a lot of ground. The setting has been darkened up a bit as well, Jak has gone through some...interesting changes since we saw him last. His powers have increased...as well as his attitude.
The majority of gameplay is taken up by mission structured objectives. You need to go to point A and do B and your reward is C. The missions range in scope from racing to escort missions. The game developers have obviously taken a hint from the Grand Theft Auto series in terms of gameplay. Virtually every vehicle can be hijacked and ridden around the city. Guards are patrolling the streets, and if you make trouble, they will chase you down and shoot some pretty wicked weapons in your general direction- to avoid them you need to either hide or outrun them.
The camera is great, and can be repositioned to help you out with the trouble spots. As expected, the graphics are smooth and lush, with a great style of animation incorporated into the final product. There are no load times and the scenery flows together nicely. As I mentioned earlier, the world on which we find outselves is massive and there are many objectives to accomplish before we can unlock all its secrets. The addition of a map option is a great help as the size of Jak II's world(s) can sometimes be overwhelming and confusing.
The only thing that detracts from the game is the difficulty level on some of the missions. I have found myself trying for over an hour at times to clear one objective or another. The game can be downright brutal, cruel, sadistic and even petty...yet I always find myself going back into the fray for more. This game is unique and by all means shoud be rented before you go and buy it. Naughty Dog has tried something new, they have tried to grow with the times and create something that stands on its own. As mentioned earlier, some might be put off by the new direction that Jak and Daxter have taken, others will applaud the developers for the fresh new look.
Its a mixed bag...some like it, some hate it...the best advice: rent before you buy...its safer that way.
Jak II borrows from several different current game titles, but for the most part it is mainly influenced by Grand Theft Auto. I'm not even sure if you can still consider this a 'platformer' game. The game is consistant of Jak and Dexter running around this town trying to do missions for people who will help them overthrow the ruler of the kingdom (or at least that's what i'm getting from where i'm at in the game). The game starts out (i guess) where the last one left off (but according to Dexter when he finds Jak he says "i've been looking for you for 2 years" so i'm not sure). Jak was captured by the ruler of the kingdom (forget his name) as his 'secret weapon' to destroy the creatures threatening his town, he pumped Jak full of Dark Eco to make him a powerful threat, unfortunately, Jak resisted. The ruler wants Jak dead by the night so he and his men leave Jak alone in the prison where he is being kept. Dexter finds Jak and sort of helps him out of the prison, afterwards you must find different people and do different missions to earn the respect of the slums and an underground figure named 'The Shadow' who will help overthrow the evil ruler.
Gameplay, as i said before, is completely different from the first JAD. Forget about seeing the bright, colorful islands and hearing the tropical drum beats on the background music, that is now replaced by a depressing, ominous sounding music. The bright, colorful islands are replaced with a dingy, grimy looking city with very repulsive monsters. Instead of doing what is normally required in a platformer, you instead can now do almost everything available in the GTA series (minus blood, hookers, gangs, etc.). Instead of an on-foot journey, you are equipped with a choice of hovercrafts (only after you steal them from unexpecting people in the town) and a new selection of weapons. You can now have the option of killing innocent pedestrians, outrunning the local authorities and roaming about the very large town (once again, the basics of the GTA series). This game is not the 'child-friendly' game JAD was, it is more hardcore, like another reviewer said, most things turn very harsh in this game (Example: "Kick some butt" turns into "kick some ass", borrowed from another reviewer). If your looking for a family game, don't look here.
My overall reaction to Jak II is mostly positive, i enjoy the 'cartoonish' GTA experience very much and find the graphics very much improved from the original JAD. I think i prefer Jak like he was in the first one, however, instead of the now 'hardcore' Jak. Overall, this is a fun 'platformer?' game that you can enjoy for under $40.
(Also, i didn't understand why this game is titled Jak II when it still features an equil amount of Dexter? Maybe because it revolves more around Jak, not Dexter? I'm not sure, i would've been happy with Jak & Dexter II.)
I really don't know what to say here. On one hand, you've made a game thats incredibly addicting, fun, imaginative, and an all-around blast to play. But on the other hand, I'm hoping that you fire the sadists who designed most of this game.
I'm glad you made a sequal to Jak and Daxter, a fun and lighthearted game that was arguably one of the best family games in a long time. It's great to go through more adventures featuring Jak and the adorable Daxter. Moving from a jungle world to a city world was an interesting move, and it works for me. Haven city is an interesting place, and enjoyable to go through, but I did notice that there's really nothing to do. No shops to go to, no gyms, no resturaunts. All one can do is just walk around and enjoy the sights. Though I do admit, the palace is awesome!
But oh, what sights they are. Jak II gets a perfect score in terms of graphics. Everything is very detailed and glorious to behold, especailly when you're high above the ground, and have a bird's eye view of the city.
But...Naughty Dog, I have to ask you something. Why did you make this game so f***ing hard? Really, why did you? The difficulty in this game is simply unacceptable. The game's missions are frustrating excercises in trial and error, where the game forces you to memorize a certian pattern with no room for error. Make one, ONE mistake, and you fail and start over. Video game developers, please take note of this. TRIAL AND ERROR, MIXED IN WITH THE DIFFICULTY LEVEL FROM HELL, IS NOT FUN!
I can't even begin to describe how many times I smashed my controler on the ground, screamed curses at the television screen, and generally prayed that Naughty Dog would go out of buisness. At times I felt like I was Dark Jak, running into the Naughty Dog offices while yelling "Hulk smash!" and tearing everything and everyone to bloody shreds for making such an insanely difficult game.
I don't ever want to do those F***ING RACES EVER AGAIN. EVER. Those stupid, insanely difficult races that you have to win to advance in the game are almost impossible to beat due to racers who almost never make a mistake, and have reflexes six times as fast as a normal human. There's one race where you have to race the city champion through the city and beat him. Naughty Dog, I have never experienced so much anger and hatred at a game before in my life. If it takes me sixty attempts and three hours before I can complete a mission, especially this race, I think you made a big mistake in terms of difficulty. I think you should stick with platforming and abandon racing forever. I'd rather lick the inside of an exhaust pipe then do another race in this game, or any other racing game that you develop Naughty Dog.
Oh, and Naughty Dog, people got sick of racing through pink cirlces about a decade ago. In your future games, please do not have any races where you have to go through pink circles. Insanely bad.
And the strange thing is that while the game is unforgivably difficult, I found myself wanting to come back and keep going for more. I don't know why either. Maybe it was just the fact that I wanted to see what was around the next corner, or how the story was going to go. Talk about heroin! It destroys you, yet you always want more.
So while the game is unforgivably difficult and at times infuriating to play, the visuals and sound are top notch, and I found the story to be quite fascinating, with several twists that I never saw coming.
After finishing the game, I have mixed feelings. I think i'll like going through the city for quite some time, just to look at the sights. And while there are a lot of secrets to unlock (by collecting precursur orbs), I don't think i'll try to unlock most of them, simply because the tasks you must do to unlock them are more of those insanely difficult missions. Why do you love to torture me Naughty Dog, by forcing me to get exact times on those F***ing races to earn orbs? To be blunt, your races suck. Loosing them over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again for hours is not fun. Ever. It's a waste of time. I hope you fire the sadists who designed the races, and all these sadistic challanges that you have to do to get orbs.
So do I commend or condem you Naughty Dog? In the end, the answer is neither. I'll play Jak 3 because I do really like this series, and I want to see where it goes. But I hope you learned a lot from this game and the feedback. So the game gets an A+ in the visual and audio department, and a D- in the gameplay department.
To people who are considering this game(or those who have severe anger management issues), I strongely suggest you rent it before you buy it.
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